


so be it, i'm your crowbar

by lilacpollen



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Book 2: The Dream Thieves, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, canon divergence: what's a timeline anyway?, canon typical use of homophobic slurs, cryptic dream latin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:14:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22959997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacpollen/pseuds/lilacpollen
Summary: Ronan hauled himself up onto the bed. "What does it do again?""It's kind of like MDMA," Kavinsky lay down, facing him. "If you slowed it down. It releases dopamine and serotonin. A little norepinephrine, so you don't fall asleep." He ticked the names off on his fingers."Ok, fucking chemist. Like I know what that shit means."Kavinsky tapped Ronan's forehead with his index finger. "It's a happy pill, Lynch. Don't overthink it. I'll make you feel good.""What?"Ronan must have heard him wrong."It'll make you feel good." K repeatedor: a Ronan-centric study of complicated emotions for every boy in his life and poor decision making skills featuring street racing, fighting with your best friend, and the cherry on top: drug fueled sex with a cokehead who's in love with you
Relationships: Joseph Kavinsky/Ronan Lynch, Ronan Lynch / Adam Parrish (Background)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 199





	1. so be it, i'm your crowbar

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter brought to you by Drugs by Charli XCX (ft. ABRA). work title from I know by Fiona Apple. POSSIBLY more to come. unbeta'd because of the sin that is being a rovinsky truther in 2020.

**GET RID OF MEANING. YOUR MIND IS A NIGHTMARE THAT HAS BEEN EATING YOU: NOW EAT YOUR MIND.**

\- Empire of The Senseless, Kathy Acker 

Summer in Henrietta was a heavy thing- heat, sun, and humidity conspired to make it nearly impossible to be outdoors for long without feeling sweat dripping down one's face. The days were long and brilliant- fading out with sunsets the color of orange sherbert and late-blooming periwinkles. Ronan spent the summer before his father died with Gansey- trampling through fields blissfully unaware of the sun beating down from above. That July, his hair still hung in long, dark curls down to his jaw. Entire days were devoted to researching public land records in the library, walking around with emf readers and rudimentary dowsing rods in parks where picnicking families gawked. 

It was a different time. A different life, really. 

Now, Ronan preferred the night. 

It was June. He drove slowly down Henrietta's main street- empty and quiet, bathed in a yellow-green glow from the streetlamps. Even the bars closed at midnight, and the town was small enough that nearly all its inhabitants had crawled back to their beds. He'd rolled the windows on the BMW down to let in the night air - cool compared to that of the day, but still dense with humidity. Ronan breathed it in with a thrill. The clock on his dashboard read 1:21 AM. 

He knew what he was looking for, even if he wasn't sure he'd find it. He could never tell with Kavinsky. Their text threads always grew convoluted, irrelevant, K texting him increasingly vulgar comments as the night went on. Ronan often turned his phone off just to make the incessant buzzing stop. Tonight, their conversation was fairly tame. 

[k] 12:02 _WYA_

[k] 12:02 _having some quality time with dick iii?_

Then he sent an eggplant emoji. And a series of water droplets. Ronan, bored and reckless in his bedroom at Monmouth, rolled his eyes and sent back a middle finger. He ignored his phone for another 15 minutes until the combination of buzzing and curiosity got the better of him. 

[k] 12:04 _having a party tonight u shld come. we've got the good stuff._

Attached was a photo of an expensive bottle of Irish whisky and a small, plastic bag full of small, white pills. 

[k] 12:05 _i'll even let you have the first drink. never say i'm not generous._

[k] 12:07 _one missed call_

[Ronan] 12:15 _classy_

He got three bomb emojis in response. 

[k] 12:16 _only for you lynch_

He felt a sick, satisfying lurch in his gut and stared at the phone for a long time. 

[Ronan:] 12:20 _main street stoplight. 1:30. winner takes the whisky._

They both knew it wasn't about the whisky, but Ronan needed an excuse. The bass thudded from the windows of his car, hungry and vicious, permeating the night. As the clock drew nearer to half past one, Ronan felt the anticipation rising in him thick as clotted blood. He needed something tangible. He needed a jolt of adrenaline to roll over him so he could stop thinking and feel, only feel. He was sick of boredom, sick of longing for things that would never be possible. 

The light blinked yellow, then red. 

He heard the growl of the motor before he saw the Mitsubishi in his mirror, the low rumble of a predator about to strike. His pulse jumped, and he turned the music down without taking his eyes off the rearview. Kavinsky pulled up next to him so slowly it was agonizing. Ronan looked over at the anonymous darkness of the car's tinted windows. 

The passenger side window hissed down, and Kavinsky smiled a shark's smile at Ronan. 

This was the part that would keep him coming back. He felt a dirty sort of thrill, adrenaline and desire digging through his veins. It was the shiver of recognition. He saw Kavinsky, and Kavinsky saw him. 

"You're early." Kavinsky smirked, and lit a cigarette while they waited for the light to turn green. "You must be really desperate for it. To seek out little ol' me." There was something sensuous about the shape of his mouth as he talked around the cigarette. Half his face was lit in an eerie red glow from the traffic light. 

Ronan smiled thinly at him. "Nowhere else to get an easy ride and a free bottle of whisky." 

"If you win." 

"Yes." He agreed. "If I win." 

There was a beat of tense silence- something stretched taut between them unwinding. 

The light turned green. 

Ronan shot off the line, accelerating hard and steady. Kavinsky was close behind him, whooping and lurching forwards. It went how every other race went: for a moment the Mitsubishi pulled ahead, but K screwed the shift from 3rd to 4th and Ronan didn't. The BMW sailed lengths ahead until it was clear that Ronan had won, and they pulled over into a strip mall so he could gloat and Kavinsky could curse. 

"You're a goddamn asshole." Kavinsky told him. "You're such a little bitch." 

Ronan took a long sip of the whisky, tearing up and coughing as he swallowed. It burned the whole way down, a line of fire from his throat to his stomach. 

"A little bitch who beat you." 

They were at iHop. It was the only restaurant in Henrietta that stayed open 24 hours a day, and it was rumored that Kavinsky and his group had paid off the waitstaff long ago to put up with their flagrant underage drinking. 

Kavinsky scoffed, but didn't reply. Ronan topped off their too-sweet iced coffees with the whisky - a waste of a good bottle, but he couldn't bring it back to Monmouth or Gansey would somehow find a way to make it disappear. 

He found himself drunk, and almost earnest, saying: "You never get the shift between 3rd and 4th right. You always fuck it."

Kavinsky grimaced, his voice acidic, knocking a small, blue and yellow pill back with his iced coffee. "Teach me then, oh Nascar master." 

Ronan thought about what it would be like to teach Kavinsky anything. He couldn't imagine it. The two of them in the Mitsubishi was as far as he got before everything blurred into unreality. 

So he told him: "Fat chance. I can't give up all my secrets." 

K rolled his eyes. "Whatever, fag. You're so stingy." 

They'd had this exchange enough times that it was meaningless. Ronan took a long sip of his drink and slumped down in the booth, crossing his arms. "You're the one obsessed with my dick."

He received a sharp kick to his shin. 

"- Ow! Fucking bastard." Ronan stomped his foot down on top of Kavinsky's, and K jerked back, scowling. The waitress came by and set down their food, eyeing the pair warily like one might eye a pair of feral cats. Ronan glowered at her, silently, until she left the tables earshot. 

Kavinsky had a tall stack of pancakes covered in whipped cream and sugary strawberry syrup, incongruous with his hollowed-out cheeks and waxy skin. Ronan had sausage, eggs, and hashbrowns. 

K poked at his pancakes experimentally and took a few noncommittal bites. He was never interested in food when he was high. For a few long moments, it was quiet aside from the scraping of cutlery and the banal pop music playing overhead. 

Through a mouthful of food, Ronan asked: "Why've you gotta be such a freak all the time?" 

Any residual ill will over their short kicking match had seemingly dissolved. Kavinsky was rifling through the pocket of his bomber jacket. 

"Nature over nurture, right?" He pulled out another one of the blue and yellow pills, offering it to Ronan. "I like to have fun."

Ronan eyed it warily. He'd gotten high with K before, but it had been different. Edibles were commonplace - even Gansey could've found weed if he wanted it. This was different -he didn't know what it was. Uppers, downers, or a party drug that K had created all on his own. 

He took it and examined it under the light, curious. "What's it do?" 

Kavinsky smiled, made a plane with his hand and mimicked flying up, up up. "It takes you high and then it drops you down." He made a crashing motion. "You'll sleep real good after one of these." He reached across the table and patted Ronan's cheek, conspiratorial. "I know you have sleeping problems, man." 

K's calloused fingertips rested against his jaw for a moment too long, tilting his head back. Ronan pulled away from K's touch. 

Kavinsky politely ignored this small rejection. "I'll even drive you home. Take the beemer and drop you at Daddy Dick's warehouse." He rested his elbows on the table, leaning in with a wolfish grin. "I can be a gentleman." 

Ronan shook his head and put the pill down on the table between them. "I'm done tonight." He reached for his wallet and pulled out a crumpled ten-dollar bill, tossing it on the table between them. "Thanks for the meal." 

K sighed, leaned back in the booth. "Bor- _ing._ " He replied, sing-song. "You're so predictable. Always leaving as soon as things get interesting." 

"Entertain me better next time," Ronan told him, smiling thinly. "And maybe I'll stay longer." 

* * *

That night, Ronan dreamt of Adam. 

They were at St.Agnes on the first floor. Ronan was sitting in the pew he usually frequented, and Adam was in the row ahead of him. The church was empty aside from the two of them, and even though Ronan couldn't see his face in the way of dreams he simply knew it was Adam. It was dim and warm. The room smelled like incense and roses beginning to rot. Candles flickered at the edges of his vision. 

"I thought I'd find you here." Adam said. His arm was resting on the back of the pew, a nail absently scratching at the dark wood. 

"I didn't know you looked for me." Ronan's tongue felt heavy in his mouth, watching as Adam scraped back curls of sharp-smelling cedar from the bench. 

"I don't, really." Adam replied. "But you always come back." 

Suddenly he was sitting next to Ronan, close enough that he could smell gasoline and sweat. Plain dollar store soap and the green scent of the forest after a rainstorm. He told Ronan: "Semper me petebas." 

Ronan leaned forward until his forehead touched the pew ahead of them, as if in prayer. 

"Ronan." Adam touched his cheek with one freckled hand. His skin was fever-hot. "Cur status hoc est?" 

His hands were on Ronan's back, underneath his tank top. He felt Adam's fingers tracing the shape of his spine. Neck to tailbone, he felt himself sink and part open, like a hot knife through butter, or the dissection of a wax figurine. 

Ronan let out a breath, and thought only _please._

He was surrounded by heat. Sweat dripped from his forehead and pooled against the back of the pew, cooling into clumps of hard wax. He was melting into a Ronan-shaped creature. He would be fossilized this way, and people would come into the church and find a shell of a boy left in the pews. 

He felt a cool sting. 

Adam was no longer Adam, and the scent of rotting flowers was suddenly overwhelming. Ronan wasn't melting anymore. His back was still flayed open, but it was dripping blood now instead of candle wax. _I'm not bleeding_ , he told himself. _I'm whole._ The carpet beneath his feet was wet. He saw himself as if from above and watched as his skin hemorrhaged, trying to knit itself back together. He smelled copper in the air. 

Kavinsky, beside him, turned Ronan's forearm over and scraped his nails across Ronan's skin from wrist to elbow. Five red ribbons of flesh curled away from his arm, leaving shallow, bloody scratches in their wake. 

He told him: "Solus eris." 

Ronan woke up to bloodstains on his sheets. 

* * *

It was a few days before Ronan saw Kavinsky again. Since the dream, he had been restless and angry. Gansey did his best to placate him, Ronan could tell, but it was useless. He felt as if he was burning alive all the time, and the weather didn't help. It was hot and bright out, and Ronan had to wear an old, Aglionby baseball cap to keep his scalp from burning which was so embarrassing that he avoided going out as much as he could. This also made him angry, because it inevitably meant that Gansey would take Blue or Adam on whatever adventure he'd cooked up for the day and leave Ronan, boorish and irritable, sequestered away at Monmouth. 

Everything came to a head when, on a Wednesday evening as the sun set, Gansey scolded Ronan for not sorting the recycling from the trash properly. 

Ronan kicked the garbage can: "What's the goddamn point of it anyway? We just sell our recycling off to other countries where it sits in landfills. We're not _doing_ anything." 

Gansey was at his prime - boat shoes on, salmon colored polo shirt with blue searsucker shorts, his brown hair coiffed just so. He crossed his arms over his chest- He hadn't taken his contacts out and switched over to his glasses for the night, so he looked like a strange, curated version of himself. 

It made Ronan want to hurl himself out the window. 

"You know it's the principle of the thing, Ronan. We can't let it slide and do nothing." 

"Whatever." Ronan snarled. A vicious part of him thought _he's only doing this to impress Blue._ He was abruptly sick of Gansey, sick of being told what to do and exactly how to do it. "Nothing's right for you! I try to put up with Aglionby, I sort the stupid recycling, I stay here every night, and it doesn't matter because it's all wrong! I'm not your fucking maid, Gansey. I don't have to do everything _your_ way." 

Ronan watched Gansey turn distant. Icily polite, he said: "I didn't realize it was such a punishment to live with me." 

Ronan couldn't stand to be there, or to keep looking at the expression on his friend's face.

Disappointment, mixed with hurt. 

He left Monmouth without saying goodbye, shoving his clothing and the bottle of whisky into a ratty old backpack. He didn't know he was going to Kavinsky's place until he stopped out front. 

He parked his car and looked up at the house. K lived in an ugly, brick-faced McMansion in the suburbs between Henrietta and the neighbouring towns of the valley. Regularly, multiple cars were crowded into the driveway, accommodating K's rotating cast of friends. 

Tonight however, not even Prokopenko's golf was parked next to the Mitsubishi. 

Ronan got out of the BMW, slamming the door shut loudly, and went over to the car. It seemed far too polite to ring the doorbell, and too boring to call Kavinsky or text him. Too desperate. 

In the end, Ronan just punched the passenger side window of the Mitsubishi until it splintered, setting the car alarm off. His knuckles began to bleed. The alarm screamed into the night, sending several lights on in nearby houses. 

Kavinsky found him a few minutes later, standing over the car, the bottle of whisky in one hand, the other dripping blood onto the pavement. 

He was wearing his sunglasses even though it was getting dark, and he held a joint between his lips, the lit end glowing cherry-red in the dusk. 

Ronan said: "Took you long enough." 

Taking a long drag, Kavinsky told Ronan: "There are easier ways to get my attention, you know." 

Ronan shrugged, and stepped into his space to pluck the joint from his fingertips. Without a word, he inhaled, held his breath, and exhaled. He felt the rush straight to his head- coughed, and laughed despite himself: "This is more fun." 

"You're a mess, Lynch." he pushed his sunglasses up to rest in his hair, and fiddled absently with his keys to lock and unlock the car. The alarm stopped, but the lights in neighbouring houses stayed on. He eyed Ronan, who took another long drag, coughing unceremoniously. 

K raised an eyebrow in cool disapproval, and took the joint from Ronan without resistance. "Lightweight." 

"Shut up." Ronan replied. "I don't smoke. I've had edibles twice." 

"Stunning tolerance." Kavinsky took another hit, and blew smoke into Ronan's face. "Are we going to stand out here all night, or are you coming inside?" 

He smiled, and held up the whisky for K to see. "Why do you think I brought the bottle?" 

Kavinsky had the entire bottom floor of the house to himself. The inside was cavernous and sparsely furnished with high ceilings and dark, hardwood floors. The section that served as Kavinsky's 'bedroom' had a sprawling mattress on a cheaply made frame, and a coffee table littered with drug paraphernalia. A box of condoms, a stick of deodorant, and a bottle of lube graced the floor next to the bed. He hadn't bothered to put anything down in the rest of the room other than an ugly, red shag rug. 

Ronan was hyper-aware of the quiet of the house. Normally, some of Kavinsky's friends would be here - but it was hard to even call them that. They were his pack of dogs, loyal and unwavering. Ronan didn't like any of them, but he was used to their presence here. The basement felt empty, just the two of them to fill the space. 

"Where is everyone?" Ronan asked, despite his better instincts. It was dead silent. Their footsteps echoed as they floated from room to empty room. 

"I gave everyone the night off." K waved his arm noncommittally, and grinned at Ronan. "I wanted some me-time." 

"Sorry to crash the party." Ronan drawled, sarcastic. "What's the agenda now?" 

"Get high." He threw the door to his bedroom open, and collapsed onto the bed. "Play video games. Look for someone to race, if we're bored." 

For once, the idea of racing exhausted Ronan. He sat on the edge of K's bed, and took the joint back from him. They'd smoked the entire way through the house, and his head felt heavy with it. He took another hit and Kavinsky propped himself up on his elbows to watch. 

"Hitting a wall yet?" 

Ronan scoffed. "You wish." He hauled himself up onto the mattress and lay halfway on his side- supporting himself with one forearm. He took another drag and puffed in K's face. He watched as Kavinsky crinkled his nose, took the joint back, and took a long pull. He felt strange and far away. He didn't think of Gansey or Adam, Monmouth or Aglionby. He didn't think of anything at all.

He said: "I'm fucking invincible." 

Kavinsky rolled his eyes. "We'll see about that." 

They passed the joint back and forth until it burnt down to nothing, and K climbed out of bed to roll another. 

Ronan watched as he rolled it. His hands were deft and precise, his expression entirely concentrated as he licked one side of the rolling paper to seal the joint. He climbed back onto the bed and cupped his hands around his mouth while he lit it. For a moment, his face was illuminated orange and hazy. K let out a breath, coughed, and tapped the end into a plastic cup on the floor that served as their ashtray. 

He flopped down onto his side and grinned at Ronan, his mouth all teeth. "This one's special. Just for you." 

Ronan took the joint without question, and took a long hit. He didn't know what it was- only that it hit him like a bag of bricks, like being enveloped in hot water. Ronan coughed on the exhale. 

"Jesus Mary Fuck." 

K took the joint back and took a drag. "You like it?" He was still smiling. 

Ronan felt both sharply aware of his body, and like he was too heavy in his skin. 

"I hate it," He told K, and then gestured for him to hand it over. "Give that back- you don't want any. It's awful." 

Kavinsky laughed around the joint in his mouth. He took Ronan's face in his hands- one under his chin, the other pressed close against his neck. Ronan tried to pull away but K held fast. 

Deceptively soft, he whispered: "Relax, Lynch. Open your mouth and inhale. You're making me waste it." K took another hit and leaned in, pressing his mouth against Ronan's. 

Ronan opened his mouth and inhaled. The smoke passed from Kavinsky's mouth to his lungs. He thought: _This is a kiss._ He had never kissed anyone before. For a moment, he let it happen. He leaned in, felt K's mouth slide against his- hotter and hungrier than he thought it would be. He tasted smoke and menthol. Ronan kissed him back. 

Then K bit his lip, and Ronan jerked away. 

He was breathing heavily. He didn't know how long it had been since Kavinsky touched him. It could have been seconds or minutes. His skin felt hot suddenly, and the air pressed in close around him. 

Kavinsky's eyes were on him, half lidded. His gaze was dark and heavy. His hand was still on Ronan's face. He laughed, raggedly, his calloused thumb dragging down Ronan's cheek. 

"That wasn't so bad, was it Princess?" 

Subconsciously, Ronan licked his lips. "Don't call me that, Dickwad." 

"You sure know how to sweet talk a guy." Kavinsky said, and leaned in to kiss him again. 

Ronan kissed him back. He shifted his weight so his arm was under K’s shoulder and allowed himself to be crowded against the mattress. They’d been lying on their sides, but now Kavinsky was on top of him- one hand on his chest pushing him down. K was scrawnier than Ronan and lighter- he could have thrown him off if he wanted. 

Ronan was sick of making choices based on how Gansey would react. Kavinsky was a deplorable grease stain of a human being, but he found he didn’t care. As much as he hated to admit, it felt good to have someone’s eyes on him. He knew the way Kavinsky looked at him, and he knew what it meant even if he pretended not to for the longest time. He thought of Gansey. _You know the difference between us and Kavinsky? We_ matter **.**

Did any of this count if Kavinsky didn't matter? 

He didn't know. He didn't know what kissing Kavinsky counted towards in the first place. He was so high. Nothing was true or sure, and it should have bothered him but instead it was a relief. He knew that Kavinsky's mouth was on his- that he tasted warm and smokey, that it felt good when his hands scraped over Ronan's scalp. 

They stopped to breathe, to smoke more. This time Ronan kissed him first, tried not to cough on the smoke as it travelled from his mouth to Kavinsky's. They lost their shirts somewhere down the line and K opened the window to let the smoke out. The night air poured in and if he hadn't been so high he would've laughed and laughed at this. He was in Joseph Kavinsky's bed, high out of his mind, lips swollen and nerves fired from kissing. 

He'd hate himself for it in the morning, but it was still dark out, and it was still summer. When the sun rose there would be no going to school, no going back to Monmouth if he didn't want to. It occurred to him that no one would miss him, unless he skipped church on Sunday. He could stay in this strange limbo for as long as he wanted. 

Kavinsky was crouched over the coffee table, his back to Ronan, organizing his cache of pills and powders into uniform piles. Ronan watched his back, the shape of his spine and the way his muscles shifted as he moved. Time was meaningless. It was impossible to tell how long he'd been in that basement with K. There weren't any clocks, and he'd left his phone in the BMW. 

He rose on unsteady legs, and sat on the cool, empty floor next to Kavinsky. He was close enough to touch, and Ronan ran a hand through K's hair. It was a strange, greasy texture from a combination of stiff product and time. 

"Gross." Ronan pinched a lock of his hair between his fingers. "Do you ever shower?"

Scowling, Kavinsky batted Ronan's hand away. "I'm trying to work here." 

"Can't it wait until the morning?" 

Kavinsky had been sorting a large pile of multi-colored lozenges into much smaller piles of 3 or 4 pills each, tucked smoothly into small, clear plastic baggies. He arched an eyebrow at Ronan, as if to say: _They aren't going to pack themselves._

"I want to try the pill from last time." Ronan said. He was higher than he'd ever been, but he was bored. He wanted to go farther. He wanted Kavinsky's eyes on him, and he never wanted to be sober again. 

Kavinsky finished the bag he was packing, and then he set his things down and dug through another bag of miscellaneous candy-colored pills. Eventually he came up with two blue and yellow ones, and turned to face Ronan. 

"You need water?" 

Ronan shook his head, and K told him: "Open." 

He opened his mouth, obedient, and Kavinsky placed the pill on his tongue. He tasted metal and salt, the texture of K's fingertips unfamiliar and somehow thrilling against his lips. Ronan swallowed without a second thought. Kavinsky knocked back his own pill with a smile. 

"Are you more entertained this time?" 

"Maybe." Ronan lay down on the floor, his skin hot against the cool hardwood. "How long does this thing take to kick in?" 

"15 minutes." K said. "Maybe longer. Depends on your metabolism. You should get up unless you want to sleep down there." 

Ronan sat up, holding the majority of his weight on his elbows. "Is this a fucking sleeping pill?" 

Kavinsky laughed, a jackal's sound. "No, Shithead, but the crash afterwards is intense. You'll probably fall asleep. I always do." 

Ronan hauled himself up onto the bed. "What does it do again?" 

"It's kind of like MDMA," Kavinsky lay down, facing him. "If you slowed it down. It releases dopamine and serotonin. A little norepinephrine, so you don't fall asleep." He ticked the names off on his fingers. 

"Ok, fucking chemist. Like I know what that shit means." 

Kavinsky tapped Ronan's forehead with his index finger. "It's a happy pill, Lynch. Don't overthink it. I'll make you feel good." 

"What?" 

Ronan must have heard him wrong. 

"It'll make you feel good." K repeated, scuffing his palm over Ronan's shaved head. His hand stopped and rested on the junction between Ronan's neck and shoulder. Ronan looked at his face - the sharp edge of his cheekbones, the thin, straight scar bisecting his right eyebrow. His pupils were huge. He looked like a shark, or one of those jungle cats that only hunted at night. 

Ronan tried to smooth out the disordered shape of Kavinsky's brow, and asked: "What fucked your face up?" 

"Broken bottle." K mimicked a crashing sound with his mouth. "Dear old Dad liked to throw shit." 

Sometimes, he forgot that Kavinsky had a life before he moved to Henrietta. It was hard to imagine him as a kid. It was an uncomfortable thought. Kavinsky had an entire life before he met Ronan, and probably an entire life here in Henrietta that Ronan didn't even ask about. 

He almost wished he felt bad about it. But K seemed to care as little as Ronan. 

"What about this one?" Ronan poked an ugly little tattoo on Kavinsky's pale, emaciated chest. It was a pair of hands shaking around a bloody knife. 

"Proko did that one. Not much of an artist," He smiled crookedly. "Taped a needle to the end of a pen and stole the ink from the art room at Aglionby." 

The admission startled a laugh out of Ronan. 

"Yeah, I know it's ugly." 

"It's great." Ronan tried for a deadpan expression, but he couldn't keep the smile off his face. "Goddamn masterpiece." 

"You're an awful liar." Kavinsky said, and flicked Ronan's ear. "Do you feel anything yet?" 

"I don't know." But Ronan felt lighter. Colors seemed sharper, scents seemed stronger. He could feel his own pulse thudding in his chest. "What's it supposed to feel like?" 

Kavinsky shrugged, and Ronan watched the way his skin and muscle moved across his bones. A fine machine in perfect harmony. "It's different for everyone." 

He dragged a nail down the inside of Ronan's forearm, and Ronan felt it like it was the inside of his thigh. A hot rush tingled down his spine. His face felt suddenly hot. Kavinsky's hand was wrapped around Ronan's wrist, fingers pressed to his pulse. 

He arched an eyebrow, smirking. "Not feeling anything?" 

"Shut up." Ronan was aware of his heartbeat in his ears. 

"God, you're easy." Kavinsky sighed. "All that Catholic guilt." 

Ronan kissed him before he could say anything else. It was a clumsy kiss, and a hungry one. He didn't know what he was doing. He only knew he wanted Kavinsky to stop teasing him. Kavinsky responded with equal force- it was not like their earlier kisses. It felt somehow like a fight. As soon as he got a hold on him, he shifted positions, sucked Ronan's bottom lip between his teeth. Ronan had to take K by the back of his neck and pull him down to get any kind of control. He kept pulling out of Ronan's reach, his mouth too high for Ronan to catch. It was frustrating. 

Kavinsky flipped so he was lying on his side and pulled Ronan to him. He crushed their lips together, Ronan's tongue in Kavinsky's mouth, Kavinsky's hands on his hips. They scuffled this way for a few minutes, competitive, until Ronan pulled back to gulp in a mouthful of air. 

"I give up." His chest was heaving. "You win." 

Kavinsky's grin was huge, world-eating. His eyes were glassy, and his mouth and cheeks were a matching shade of red- like he'd gorged himself on cherries. "If I knew drugs made you this horny, I'd let you into substance parties more often." 

"Drugs make everyone horny." Ronan said, like he had any kind of authority on the subject. 

Kavinsky ignored him. He crawled on top of Ronan and kissed his neck, sucked a bruise right on top of his clavicle. Ronan let the sensation crash over him in waves. It was better than a dream, and a thousand times more dangerous because it was real. There would be consequences for this. K's teeth scraped over his shoulder bone, and Ronan shivered. 

He felt it all in a way that was nearly overwhelming. Each touch was a lick of fire. He could smell smoke, and the chemical shock of drug-store deodorant. It had to be the drugs that did this to him. He grabbed for K's shoulders and pulled him down into a kiss. They tangled together for a few long moments until Ronan accidentally bit his own lip and Kavinsky stuck a hand down the front of Ronan's jeans. 

Somehow, it wasn't what Ronan had been prepared for. He saw sparks behind his eyes. He had to pull away from Kavinsky's mouth, had to catch his breath. He was already lying down but he felt as if he were falling. K pressed one palm down against Ronan's chest, and the other on his crotch. If Ronan hadn't been so blissed out and lost in the heat and pressure of Kavinsky's touch, he would've been embarrassed at how hard he was. He hadn't realized he was so hard. He pressed his face into the mattress, flung an arm over his face. He was flushed red from the tips of his ears to the center of his chest. 

K was toying with the zipper on Ronans jeans. "You want these off?" He asked, and Ronan glared, fighting the urge to squirm. "What's that?" Kavinsky cupped a hand in front of his ear. "I can't hear anything." 

"Don't make me say it." 

"Say what?" Kavinsky smiled, and squeezed Ronan through his jeans. When Ronan didn't say anything, K moved away, trailed his hands up and down Ronan's thighs. 

Ronan hissed through his teeth. He felt his back arching, straining for friction. For any kind of relief. His eyes closed. 

"You really are desperate." K said, slipping one hand underneath him, cupping his ass and pulling his hips forward. Ronan felt like he was going to scream. 

The words came out in a rush, spilling over each other. "Just fucking touch me." He couldn't bear to say it but the thought came unbidden into his mind: _please._ He would never say it out loud. He would die before he admitted it: how badly, at that moment, he wanted Kavinsky. Wanted anyone to touch him. 

K only smiled thinly, and shucked Ronan's jeans down to his thighs. Ronan kicked the rest of the way out. His boxers were damp and tented. Ronan took K's hand and put it on his cheek, his thumb on Ronan's mouth. He closed his eyes. The world spun black and red behind his eyelids, and he heard Kavinsky laugh, softly. 

"You're higher than God now, aren't you?"

Ronan thought that was a blasphemous statement, but wasn't his existence just the same? No one should have the power to create life from nothing at all. No one should be able to dream untold wonders into physical being. But both of them could do it. An entire world, and it was just him and Kavinsky. 

K reached down to retrieve something from the floor. He heard the plastic snap of a cap being undone, and then he felt Kavinsky pulling down his boxers 

Ronan took K's thumb into his mouth- tasted metal and sweat. 

Kavinsky said: "I've got you now." 

K finally touched him, his wide, spindly palm wrapped around Ronan's cock. There was something cold and wet in K's hand- lube, probably- but it warmed quickly with the friction of K's movement. Ronan's head was pounding - all sensation in his body narrowed to one point, melting into heat and light and overwhelming pleasure. The drag of Kavinsky's hand against his skin, the restless pressure of his frenetic touch. Each breath felt like an eternity. He was so far from himself, and somehow rooted entirely in his body.

Kavinsky's fingers were in his mouth, on his skin, hot and relentless. He heard a strangled animal sound. He didn't recognize it as his own voice. A sparkling wave of heat rolled over him from the base of his spine to the tips of his ears. His brain blinked out and his hips jumped. Kavinsky's voice seemed to come from everywhere. "I've got you, Lynch. Come on." His hand moved faster. 

Ronan choked on air alone. 

It was over remarkably quickly. Ronan came and Kavinsky jerked him through it until he became over-sensitive, and had to shove K off him. His body was wracked with shivers. K reached for a dirty t-shirt on the floor and wiped Ronan's stomach. Even the sensation of worn-out cotton pressed over his skin was nearly too much. His head spun. He had to scooch away from Kavinsky, covering his face with his hands. He felt boneless and worn out. 

He was abruptly exhausted. 

K flopped down next to him, flinging an arm over Ronan's chest. "All tired out, princess?"

Ronan didn't even have the energy to snarl at him. He just groaned, elbowed Kavinsky, and rolled over. The bed creaked, weight shifting as K rose. 

"Sleep it off." He heard him say, but it sounded far away. Time passed strangely. It could've been seconds or hours later that Ronan heard the shower turn on. 

He was asleep before Kavinsky came back. 

* * *

Ronan woke up disoriented and stark naked. Sunlight shone in from a small above-ground window placed in the far corner of the room. From the quality of the light, it had to be noon at the earliest. The bed was empty, and Ronan found his clothes abandoned on the floor. His shirt had a suspicious stain on it. 

Kavinsky was conspicuously absent, and Ronan was grateful for it. He used the bathroom- pissed, took a shower, brushed his teeth with Kavinsky's toothbrush. He dressed in yesterday's clothes, smelling of weed and sex and sweat. In the mirror, he noticed multiple plum-colored, mouth-shaped bruises. They were far too high up his neck to be hidden in any capacity unless he decided to start sporting a scarf in June. Ronan pressed a hand over the worst of them, so he didn't have to look. He had deep bags under his eyes, and he was paler than usual, but other than that he looked fine. 

_No one's gonna notice,_ he thought to himself, palms covering the hickeys. _No one cares enough to notice_. 

He left without retrieving the bottle of whisky he'd brought with him. 

His car was where he'd left it, but the Mitsubishi was gone. His phone, abandoned in the center console, told him he had 3 missed calls. One was from Declan, and two were from Gansey. He had multiple texts, which he ignored in favor of listening to the voicemails as he traded his t-shirt for a torn up tank top in dubiously clean condition, but lacking in any incriminating stains. 

"Ronan-" Declan's voice was stern through the tinny speakers of his iphone. Ronan turned the key in the ignition, drowning his brother's voice out as the BMW hummed to life. He heard, vaguely: "You can't keep doing this. Gansey called. You do realize that Monmouth is a privilege, right? The kind that can be taken away." 

Ronan deleted the message without listening all the way through, and drove back towards town.

He listened to Gansey's next. "I don't know where you've gone, or why you think it's alright to just disappear but you need to call me back. What if something happened to you and we didn't know where you were? I know you're probably just driving around somewhere because you're angry but it's not helpful for anyone if you just disappear for hours at a time without consulting anyone. Call me." 

This was typical for Gansey. The idea of going anywhere else but Monmouth, which was at this point his home, exhausted him. But Ronan wasn't ready to see him. His anger was still too fresh, too easily stoked into an explosion by Gansey's care, his constant admonishments. He was always saying: _You're better than this, Ronan._

But what if he wasn't? What if he didn't want to be? 

He drove back to Monmouth despite himself. When he arrived, it was a relief to find the camaro missing from the yawning, gravel lot. It meant that Gansey was likely over at 300 fox way, or tramping around some field with Adam trying to map out the ley line, but Ronan didn't have it in him to be jealous. He pressed play on the last voicemail, expecting another lecture from Gansey; but it was Adam's voice that came out of the speaker instead. 

"You know it hurts Gansey when you just screw off to God knows where, right? It's not fair. He lives with you. He knows when you don't come home. " There was a scuffling in the background. Obviously, this message had been left by Adam piloting Gansey's cell phone. Ronan couldn't imagine him using the shitty landline at St. Agnes to call anyone. "You're being an asshole, and a crappy friend." His voice was precise and acidic. "Gansey deserves better than this. And, you know, I think Blue and I do, too." There was a moment of crackly, recorded silence and then a click as Adam hung up. 

Ronan felt sick. He was used to beration from Gansey and he was used to Adam's disapproving silence, but he'd never said anything to Ronan out loud before. It felt grossly unfair, for Adam to finally speak when Ronan was finally giving in, throwing himself head-first into self destruction. 

He didn't want to care what Adam thought. He didn't want to hear it. He just wanted- 

He didn't know what he wanted. Someone to touch him. To finally go home, _really_ home, back to The Barns.

To stop wanting things he couldn't have. 

Ronan sat in the BMW and pressed his hands over his eyes until he saw stars. 

He deleted the message. 

  
  



	2. and i will pretend that i don't know of your sins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gansey kicked off his shoes. "Does he think you're his friend?" He was stretched out, the lower half of his body nearly off the chair and onto the floor. He looked up at Ronan. He seemed genuinely concerned. "Are you his friend?" 
> 
> "No." Ronan replied, defensive. "We race. We're not friends." 
> 
> He wasn't strictly sure if it was true or not anymore. Kavinsky wasn't his friend, and he certainly wasn't his boyfriend, but they had kissed. They'd done a bit more than kissing, and he was taking up more and more space in Ronan's life. Ronan had sought him out the night before, not the other way around. 
> 
> It was an uncomfortable thing to realize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to caitlyn dreamresponsibly on tumblr for cheering me on through the process of this chapter, and thank you to everyone who left me such kind comments on my last chapter. not sure if this fic is "done" yet because there's still an important scene i want to write before i can feel finished with this, but i hope you guys enjoy, and here's a link to my spotify playlist for this fic <3 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6PWygayTqoAzjdMxQaQ81Y?si=hJYNVahBQgmr-ZTo1lj7Bg

**Even when I look away I am still looking.**

\- Richard Siken, Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light 

Ronan felt hungover and stretched thin for the rest of the day. Gansey didn't come back until late afternoon, which gave him ample time to throw a load of laundry in the washer and clean himself up. There was nothing to be done about the hickeys, but he shaved his face and his head, and ate a leftover slice of pizza he found in the fridge so he'd be able to say he'd eaten something when Gansey inevitably asked about it. He fed Chainsaw, who was indignant and anxious that he'd left her for an entire night and most of the day. 

He had to bribe her into forgiveness by giving her the tab from a discarded soda-can, something so shiny and small she couldn't possibly resist it. 

By the time Gansey returned, he'd made up with Chainsaw and they were sitting together in one of the old, burnished leather chairs in front of the shitty vintage TV Gansey had dug out of the garbage at the Henrietta dump, and paid an electrician to fix up. He was watching reruns of _Speed Racer_ and eating cereal out of the bag. He had a ratty Aglionby tennis sweatshirt on to cover the majority of the hickies, with matching ugly, navy and red shorts. None of the lights were on, and the evening light was beginning to turn a golden, syrupy color as it spilled through the windows. 

Chainsaw, perched on his knee, croaked when the door opened, and stood, the feathers on her throat puffing up as she continued to caw. It was hard to say whether this was a greeting or an admonishment from her. 

"Ronan." Gansey sounded both relieved and exhausted, and Ronan had to fight the urge to turn in his chair, to look at his face. He wanted to see Gansey, and at the same time he wanted to pretend he never had to look him in the eye again. For a moment, his chest was tight. He didn't want Gansey's disapproval, his worry, his reproach. It smothered him like a wet sweater in August. He would break into pieces at any moment. 

Gansey asked: "Where were you?" 

Not: _You're back_ . Not: _I'm glad to see you_ . Instead: _Where were you_ . An accusation. All the questions it held inside itself: _Why weren't you here? Why would you leave? Why do you throw away everything I've given you?_

Ronan inhaled and counted to five in his head. He held his breath, and exhaled. Without letting the feeling seep into his voice, without lying, he said: "Does it matter? I'm here now." 

Gansey let his messenger bag drop on the floor, and walked around to sit in the chair next to him. There was no more avoiding his gaze, the concerned knit of his eyebrows.

"Of course it matters. What if you crashed the BMW? What if you were dead in a ditch? If you leave and I don't know where you are or how long you mean to be gone for, I have no idea if you're missing, or in danger, or just screwing around in the middle of nowhere." He pinched the bridge of his nose, looking at once young and wearied by time. "You can't do this anymore. It's not fair. It hasn't been fair since-" His eyes flicked to Ronan's arms, the leather bands around his wrists, and then his face. He trailed off, grimacing. 

Ronan had long sleeves on, so it wasn't like his scars were visible, but he felt see-through and vulnerable. He crossed his arms over his chest and pretended he didn't feel the sting of Gansey's dismay: "I told you, man, it's not like that."

Of course, Ronan knew it was, in a way, but it _wasn't._ He hadn't done it himself. It hadn't been conscious. 

Gansey slammed the side of his fist down on the arm of the chair with a dull smacking sound. "If Noah hadn't found you, you would be _dead_ , Ronan!" 

There was a moment of shocked silence from both parties. Gansey was not violent. And neither of them talked about what happened if they could help it. Ronan didn't like to remember it and Gansey knew well enough to leave it alone. He hadn't brought it up since Ronan woke up in the hospital. 

As evenly as he could manage, Ronan told him: "I'm not going to fucking kill myself." 

They looked at each other. Ronan, defensive and acidic. Gansey, fighting valiantly to compose himself. Chainsaw had tucked herself up against Ronan, all the feathers in her neck and chest puffed out in indignant solidarity with him. 

Gansey's hair had grown messy, falling in his eyes. He ran a hand through it, pushing it back. In a very small, un-Gansey like voice, he said: "I know." And then, even smaller: "It doesn't stop me from being afraid." 

He looked suddenly younger than Ronan had seen him look in weeks. More like the boy he had befriended, and less like the stranger he put on for his parents and Aglionby faculty of all kinds. Sometimes, when they were fighting like this, Ronan forgot that Gansey was the same as him. Only seventeen, and still a boy. He forgot that Gansey was his friend at all, when he acted like a parent or even worse, like Declan. It made him want to take his life out of Gansey's hands and break it under his feet, just to prove that it was his. 

But here was Gansey, wracked with nerves and visibly disheveled. As vulnerable as Ronan had ever been, with his own way of hiding it behind airy charm and polite optimism. 

Ronan felt a wave of fresh guilt roll from his stomach to his chest. It was Gansey. 

He told him: "You don't have to worry about me." 

Gansey laughed, a tired, raw-edged sound. "I wish that were true." He slumped back in the chair. "I wish you would just tell me what you're doing." 

Ronan considered telling him the truth. All his anger had dissolved, and all that remained was an exhaustion with their current situation. He didn't want to fight anymore. He didn't want to worry about Gansey, or worry about Gansey worrying about him. 

He thought: _I don't have to tell him what happened._

He said: "I was with Kavinsky." 

Gansey's mouth was open before he could even finish: " _Kavinsky?_ "

Ronan scowled. "Would you let me talk? I was pissed. I went over to his house to screw with him, and I crashed on his couch. I didn't want to sleep here." 

"You went over to his house." Gansey repeated. He had turned in his chair to look at Ronan, his expression somewhere between concerned and appalled. "Why?" 

Ronan shrugged. "I broke the mirror on the Mitsubishi." 

Gansey melted further into the chair. "Good god, Ronan." 

"He can get it fixed." 

Gansey kicked off his shoes. "Does he think you're his friend?" He was stretched out, the lower half of his body nearly off the chair and onto the floor. He looked up at Ronan. He seemed genuinely concerned. " _Are_ you his friend?" 

"No." Ronan replied, defensive. "We race. We're not friends." 

He wasn't strictly sure if it was true or not anymore. Kavinsky wasn't his friend, and he certainly wasn't his boyfriend, but they had kissed. They'd done a bit more than kissing, and he was taking up more and more space in Ronan's life. Ronan had sought _him_ out the night before, not the other way around. 

It was an uncomfortable thing to realize. 

Gansey made a face. "Well, it's no wonder you look so rough if you were with him last night." Scrutinizing Ronan, he asked: "Are you hungover?" 

"I don't want to talk about it." Ronan said, and then he knocked his ankle against Gansey's calf. "It doesn't matter. I'm fine. I'm here now." 

They sat for a few long moments, the _Speed Racer_ reruns still playing in the background until Gansey said: "I'm glad." 

This, finally, must have been satisfying for Gansey because they sat together and watched the remainder of the episode - which no longer made sense, as they'd missed the first half- in a companionable sort of silence. Gansey migrated to the floor, sitting with both his legs crossed, and dug through his bag to find his journal. They watched a few episodes in a row that way. Ronan, tucked into the relief of silence. Gansey, reviewing notes in his journal on whatever Glendower-related adventure he'd conducted that day. Eventually, Gansey went to get the carton of orange juice from the fridge and leftover Pizza from Nino's. There was only the Avocado side left, and Ronan picked off the brown pieces and left them on the greasy paper inside the box. Gansey turned a blind eye to this behaviour. 

The sun went down, turning the sky outside the windows hot pink and sherbert-orange. Gansey went into the kitchen/bathroom/laundry room to make a phone call. 

From the tone of his voice, it had to be either Blue or Adam but Ronan didn't want to listen in case it was Adam. Time passed easily. 

They watched re-runs of old cartoons: _The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Johnny Quest._ When Ronan got hungry, he made boxed mac and cheese while Gansey sat on the floor, cutting and painting cardboard to build his miniature Henrietta. He brought him a bowl of food, and a shitty cup of some herbal tea Blue had brought around to try and help both of them sleep. 

It was the closest Ronan would get to apologizing. 

* * *

On Saturday afternoon, Ronan went to the Library with Gansey, Noah, and Adam to look at the land records around Cabeswater. It was a boring activity, but it was a blisteringly hot day, and he was grateful for a glendower-related activity that kept them indoors. They spent a few hours this way. It was so hot that Ronan gave up on his self-initiated hoodie-only rule. It had been three days since his sleepover at Kavinsky's, and the worst of the hickeys had all faded. They were no longer large and angry purple, but had faded to an ugly greenish color. Gansey was oblivious, but Noah clearly knew in the creepy way he seemed to know everything. Ronan didn't really mind this, because even when something wasn't a secret, Noah didn't talk about other people's business. 

It was only Adam's eyes on him that felt strange. 

As Ronan pretended to read another property contract from the 1960's, he felt Adam look at him. He looked up. Adam's expression was hard to place, because it was an intentional _lack_ of expression. Whatever he was thinking, he must have been thinking it very hard, because he looked at Ronan without a hint of emotion on his face. Ronan was used to Adam looking at him with exasperation, annoyance, and sometimes even amusement, but he was not used to Adam looking at him so carefully. 

Eventually, Ronan couldn't stand it. He propped his feet up on the table and crossed his legs. Sarcastically, he asked: "Do I have something on my face?" 

Noah and Gansey were a few feet away, occupying another table and looking at maps of properties from several different years layered on top of another. They were paying no attention to Adam and Ronan, who had been tasked to look into property contracts and land owners. Noah was mostly hovering in an unhelpful but benevolent manner. Gansey was deeply concentrated on sifting through the layers of maps on translucent paper. They piled around him in strange, oceanic drifts of white and yellow. 

Adam shook his head. "No." A wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows. "You just look tired. I know you were out late the other night." 

Ronan leaned back in his chair so it was balanced on two legs. "And Gansey tells you everything, right?" 

Now, finally, emotion returned to Adam's face. He was annoyed. This, Ronan could understand. "Gansey isn't the only one affected when you disappear. We're supposed to be your friends, Ronan. None of us want to hear that you're dead in a ditch." 

He was exasperated by this line of conversation. He'd already heard it from Gansey.

Ronan sighed loudly. "How many times do I have to tell you people, I wasn't dead in a ditch." 

"I know." Adam said. For a moment, Ronan thought he was looking at his neck, or his mouth, but then Adam looked him in the eye and Ronan thought he'd been imagining it. "You were with Kavinsky." His expression had shifted somewhere stormy and dark. Ronan couldn't imagine why the knowledge that he was spending time with Kavinsky mattered to Adam at all. 

"Why do you care?" Ronan felt his own anger rising, coiling in his stomach like a poisonous snake. 

"He's a cokehead." Adam said, presenting this with venom like it was something Ronan hadn't already considered. "And he's a piece of shit. Have you heard about any of his parties? Why would you want to spend time with him?" 

Ronan had in fact been at some of those parties. But that wasn't necessarily information Adam was privy to. And if Ronan knew why he was spending time with Kavinsky, he couldn't even begin to articulate it, especially to Adam, of all people. So he shrugged, careless. "He's the only person in Henrietta who knows how to race, even if he's worse than me." 

This was a half truth. He was the only dreamer Ronan had ever met other than his father, who hardly seemed to count since he was dead and could never answer any of Ronan's questions. He hadn't told Gansey or Adam or Blue what he knew about Kavinsky. It seemed too private to share. Possibly too dangerous. 

"That's not enough." Adam said. He seemed weary and disdainful of Ronan. That was alright. Ronan was tired of himself, too. 

"I have low standards." 

This was meant to be a joke, but Adam didn't laugh and even as he was making it, Ronan wasn't sure that he found it funny. 

Adam's expression shifted. He looked abruptly exhausted. His shoulders were slumped down under an invisible weight, and Ronan noticed the dark circles under his eyes. It seemed neither of them had been sleeping well recently. 

Tiredly, Adam told Ronan: "It's your life." 

This was possibly the worst thing he could've said.

* * *

Ronan found himself in the passenger seat of Kavinsky's Mitsubishi that night. Kavinsky had texted and called since the last time they saw each other but Ronan hadn't replied, let alone picked up the phone. After the library they'd gone to Nino's, where Gansey and Adam conferred with Blue on their findings and watched her every move like she was the star of a silent movie. They ate pizza and drank tall glasses of iced tea, and laughed at all the right moments. Noah had disappeared at some point on the short walk between the Henrietta Public Library and Nino's and neither Gansey or Adam seemed to notice. Outside, the cicadas screamed. Ronan stewed in silence until he couldn't stand it. 

He texted Kavinsky. _Pick me up @ 7. mainstreet bridge._

Under the table, he kicked Gansey. He looked up immediately, interrupted part way through a heated discussion over the Ley Line with Blue. He looked annoyed for a flash of a second, but schooled his expression instantly: "Yes?" 

Even when Gansey was bothered, he managed to be polite about it.

Ronan said: "I'm leaving." 

"Where are you going?" 

The line of conversation caught Adam's attention too. He had been looking at Blue's hand, where it pointed to the small outline of a house on the map, but now he was looking at Ronan. 

He avoided Adam's gaze. "I don't know. Out. I'll be back at Monmouth by midnight." 

This last part was to Gansey, who looked suspicious but mostly distracted. Eyes still on the page, he asked: "Don't you have church tomorrow?" 

"It's not until ten." 

Gansey looked up from the rudimentary map he'd copied into his journal. "I'm not going to be able to stop you, am I?" 

"Probably not." Ronan admitted. It was a relief to tell the truth without talking around anything. Adam caught his gaze for a moment. He looked, again, like he had in the library. Attentive and wary. There was something simmering in his eyes. Ronan didn't know why, but he couldn't stand to look at him. 

He slid out of the booth. Gansey put down his journal and looked at him fully for the first time, assessing the situation. It was too late, as Ronan had already texted Kavinsky, but Gansey didn't know this. For a long moment, Gansey watched him, and finally said: "Just come home tonight. Or call me." 

Ronan didn't want to make any promises. He simply said: "I'll see you later." And held his hand out to bump knuckles with Gansey, who obliged without a second thought. 

He left Nino's and walked for a few blocks until he hit the bridge. The north river rushed below, currently a cloudy orange color from the muddy run-off of multiple afternoon thunderstorms. Ronan propped himself up on one of the guardrails and waited. He checked his phone only once, long enough to see Kavinsky's one-word response. 

_Bitch,_ His phone told him, slyly. And yet, after fifteen minutes in which Ronan loitered and dropped leaves into the river and watched as they floated away, the Mitsubishi rolled up to the curb and Kavinsky rolled down the window. 

He told Ronan: "I'm not a fucking taxi." 

Ronan came around to the passenger side and knocked on the door. Kavinsky pressed a button to unlock it, and Ronan climbed inside. He said: "You didn't have to come if it's such a problem." It was an empty statement, and both of them knew it. Of course Kavinsky didn't have to come. But Ronan had texted him, and Kavinsky had appeared despite his posturing and complaints. 

Kavinsky didn't find this worthy of a response, and instead scowled through his windshield and pulled away from the curb. He looked, Ronan realized, alarmingly sober. He had dark half-moons stamped under each eye, and his pupils were a normal size. He looked paler than usual, and somewhat ragged, but otherwise normal. 

"You look like shit." Ronan told him, fiddling with the knob on the stereo, looking at K out of the corner of his eye. Some kind of underground garage electronica was playing gently through the speakers. 

"Charming as ever, Lynch." 

They were driving out of town, west towards the mountains. Ronan made himself as comfortable as he could in the passenger seat. The Mitsubishi was lower than the BMW, and jumpier. It was at once a seductive and anxiety producing vehicle. They drove in silence for a while, until Ronan realized they were driving back to the old fairground, and then behind it to the dreaming field. 

Kavinsky parked the Mitsubishi next to another Mitsubishi, and killed the engine without a second thought. He leaned over Ronan's seat to open the glove box, and a baggie of pills fell into Ronan's lap. 

Ronan raised a cool eyebrow. 

Kavinsky took the pills from him and cracked one open on the dashboard. From his back pocket, he pulled out a credit card and arranged the pile into a line instead. He snorted it without ceremony, and then wiped his nose, taking a deep breath. When he looked up at Ronan, he looked more like a version of Kavinsky he recognized. He was at once hungrier looking and fuller than he'd been when he picked Ronan up. 

He asked: "Do you want any?" 

Ronan had no plans to snort anything, but he asked: "What is it?" 

"Adderall." Kavinsky said, arranging another line. "Like coke without the side effects." 

Ronan shook his head. "I'm good." 

"Suit yourself," Kavinsky shrugged, and plucked a cut-up straw from the console of the Mitsubishi. He did another line. 

Ronan was not particularly interested in watching Kavinsky do drugs. He asked: "What's there to do out here?" 

K sat up from his hunched position over the dashboard. "Racing." He gestured to the cars and the desicated dragstrip of the fairground behind them. "Drugs." Now he gestured to the pills. "Dreaming." 

Now he looked at Ronan, and there was a heavy moment of understanding. Ronan wondered if you could dream the same dream as someone else, if they were a dreamer too. 

He asked: "Do you have something that'll help me sleep?" 

Kavinsky reached over Ronan again, and dug around in the glove box until he found another baggie of pills. He had a seemingly endless cache of illegal substances, and Ronan wondered if this was because he dreamt them all himself, or because he was well connected. Ronan assumed you had to be well connected to be a drug dealer. 

Kavinsky pulled out a mint-green capsule. "This one makes you sleep, but it's not gentle."

Ronan took it from him, and held it up in the dying evening light. It was translucent, and sparkled like a strange gemstone. 

"Will I get a hangover from it?"  
He shrugged one pale shoulder. "Depends on your tolerance." 

Ronan adjusted his seat so he could lean back. Kavinsky passed him a water bottle from the backseat, and when Ronan opened it he smelled liquor. "Gross." He told Kavinsky, and washed the pill down anyway. Vodka burned from his sternum to his stomach. 

He had taken sleeping pills before, after his stint in the hospital and under a doctor's order, so he knew how they were supposed to feel. It was a slow descent. One drifted off on the dark sea of unconsciousness. At the time he'd hated them, and Gansey had tried to get him to take them- not knowing what lurked in Ronan's subconscious. He would always sleep so deeply he couldn't dream. Sleep was a black hole. He was afraid of what he might bring back.

This was different. It was instantaneous. Ronan was pulled under and drowned to sleep. 

He was in Cabeswater. The trees muttered around him and swayed. He wasn't wearing shoes in the dream. The grass under his feet was fine and soft. Everything was cool shades of blue and green - the lush greenery of summer, the mist rolling between the trees, the heavy sky obscured by clouds. 

He knew he needed something to bring back. He heard a strange bird call in the trees. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck. 

The trees whispered "Quid vis, Greywaren?"

It was hard to tell if the trees were saying this outloud, or directly into his head. 

Ronan's hands were cupped around something warm. He thought of fireflies, of stars hanging low in the summer sky. He thought of light. 

When he woke up he was frozen in place. He saw himself from outside of his body, and next to him in the driver's seat, Kavinsky. In his numb hands, he held the sun. K leaned over to light a cigarette on it, but it didn't even spark. Ronan's hands should've been burning, should've been on fire. He was starting to come back to his body now. He could feel that his palms were warm, but it was a gentle sort of heat. Not the blistering, bubbling kind one might expect from a miniature ball of fire. Ronan was inside himself again. His pointer finger twitched. He opened his eyes.

Kavinsky was clearly watching him come back to consciousness because he took the sun out of Ronan's hands and tossed it up in the cramped space of the Mitsubishi. It bounced off the ceiling and onto Ronan's lap. "Sweet, man. You brought me a glorified beach ball." 

Ronan scowled. "Shut up." 

"It's great," Kavinsky told him. He was grinning. "You think you can get me another? I want to stockpile for my next volleyball game." 

"I wasn't looking for anything specific, dickwad." 

K scooped it out of Ronan's lap and tossed it up again. Outside, the real sun was setting and the evening began its slow descent into darkness. "It's really not so bad, Lynch. Could be fun for target practice. " He made a gun with his fingertips and pointed at Ronan. He made a bang sound out of the side of his mouth. "Let's have a few more." 

Ronan scoffed. "You're supposed to be a master forger. Get it yourself." 

"Touche." He seemed to be in better spirits since he'd gotten high. He looked around in the baggie in the center console until he found a pill that matched the one he'd given to Ronan earlier. He said: "See you on the other side." 

He swallowed the pill without another word; and slumped back in his seat instantly, limply, like a puppet with its strings cut. His sleep was so sudden, so violent, that he almost looked dead. 

It was an unsettling thing to watch, and Ronan wondered if he'd blinked out of consciousness that quickly, too. If he'd plummeted into sleep like a cliff jumper into the ocean. The only sign that K was alive was the rise and fall of his chest, and the flickering of his eyes under his eyelids. From the outside, he didn't look restful. He looked uncomfortable. Ronan could see his pulse beating in a vein in his neck, quick and frenetic. 

He didn't sleep for long, and when he woke up, it was with an armful of the miniature suns. Like Ronan, he was frozen in place when he woke. Ronan didn't like to watch K manifesting dream objects. There was always something uncomfortable in the moment before he came back, or the moment after. He felt sick and strange, and he couldn't remember how the suns had gotten there. Maybe they'd always been there and he hadn't seen it- but he knew that couldn't be the truth. 

Eventually, Kavinsky began to blink. He sat up, slowly, and passed one of his suns to Ronan. 

"How'd I do?"  
Ronan held the dreamt lights up next to each other. They were practically indistinguishable- the only difference was a slightly orange tint to the flame on Ronan's original sun. Ronan was at once impressed and wildly jealous. He couldn't help it. Even with practice, Ronan hadn't managed to successfully pull things from his dreams on command the way Kavinsky seemed to be able to. 

"Looks alright." Ronan told him. 

K made a tutting sound. "Such a harsh critic." He climbed out of his seat and opened the door to the Misubishi. He pulled his shirt up to use as a make-shift basket, and filled it with as many of the suns as he could grab. Ronan watched him, perplexed, until Kavinsky asked: "Are you going to help, or just sit on your ass in the car?" 

Ronan didn't really know what they were doing, but he didn't like the implication that he was lazy so he filled his shirt with suns, and followed Kavinsky out of the car. They walked through a few rows of Mitsubishis, until they reached the edge of the field and K dumped their bounty on the scrubby grass. There were a few stumps of cut-down trees covered in broken glass, and empty beer-cans with bullet holes through them. K went back to the car and returned a few moments later with a shiny, chrome gun that looked like a cross between a glock and something out of a sci-fi cartoon.

"We're going to shoot them." Ronan said. 

K went about arranging the suns on the stumps. Glass crunched under the soles of his ratty sneakers. "Don't you want to see if they explode?" 

Ronan couldn't say that the thought had occurred to him. Normally, the things that he thought he should shoot were tall, and greasy, and came out of his dreams to kill him. They didn't explode. They just rotted and bled. 

He propped himself up on the hood of one of the Mitsubishis to watch as K stepped away from the make-shift shooting range. 

Kavinsky postured himself, and cocked his gun at the sun. K narrowed his eyes, held his arms out straight, and fired. The shot rang out loud and true through the field, a crack of instantaneous violence in the night. One of the suns waxed large and bright as a supernova, and snuffed out just as quickly. Kavinsky laughed. 

"Not quite an explosion." Ronan remarked, and K passed him the gun, saying:

"Still satisfying." 

The metal was still warm from Kavinsky's hand when he took the weapon. Inscribed on the side were two words: _DREAM KILLER._

Ronan had held a gun before, but not a semi-automatic. They'd had hunting rifles at The Barns, and he remembered on one occasion, at a back-yard barbecue in his childhood, his father teaching him how to hold the rifle. How to brace himself for the force of the recoil when he shot a soda can. 

This was a different thing entirely. Ronan stood from his position on the hood of the car, and held out the gun testily, pointing it in the direction of the suns. It felt so light it could be a toy, and something about that made him sick. He aimed it at one of the dreamt objects, and pulled the trigger. 

The shot exploded out of the gun with a loud bang. The recoil unsteadied Ronan- and he found himself stepping back. The bullet glanced off the edge of one of the suns, which began to hemorrhage sparks that twinkled and died out as they fell into the dry grass below. 

"Swing and a miss." Kavinsky told him. "It's okay. You'll do better next time." He slapped Ronan's cheek in a light, condescending manner, and pushed himself into Ronan's space. "You're just holding it wrong." Now, he plucked the gun from Ronan's hand. "If you're really going for accuracy you need to hold it with both hands." He demonstrated, holding his right hand steady with his left, and firing at one of the suns. 

Like before, it swelled and blinked out. The shot rang in Ronan's ears. 

"If you're trying to be flashy," Kavinsky tucked one arm behind his back and readjusted his stance, one foot in front of the other, feet planted surely in the dirt. "You need to be steady." With his other hand, he fired again, hitting another sun. The field grew a candle darker. K let out a low whistle at his own handiwork. "Like a goddamn machine." 

He passed the gun back to Ronan. "Your turn." 

Ronan tried to stand the way K stood. He held the gun with both hands, kept his wrists loose and thought about the impact he had to absorb. This time, when he fired, he hit one of the suns. Kavinsky let out a whoop at the same time that the shot rang out into the night. For an instant, the sun glowed so brightly it hurt to look at it, and sputtered out. 

Ronan found himself smiling. Kavinsky's hand was on his shoulder blade. 

"Go again." He said. He was standing just behind Ronan. 

Ronan went again. He could smell smoke, and sweat, and expensive cologne. If he stepped back an inch, K would be there. He raised his arms to shoot, and K adjusted his elbow with one flat palm. He shot, and another one of the suns died out.

Kavinsky stepped away, and went around to rummage in the trunk of the nearest Mitsubishi. Ronan couldn't even pretend to know what he was looking for. There were only two of the dreamt suns left. Ronan wanted to go see what, if anything, they left behind after being shot- but he stayed where he was. Kavinsky came back. He was eating something out of a jar with his fingertips- maraschino cherries. 

"Where the hell did those come from?" Ronan asked, as K offered him the jar. He dug a cherry out, the sickly sweet flavor bursting and melting on his tongue.  
"I was hungry." K said, taking the gun from Ronan with sticky fingers. "Sometimes I leave myself snacks for later. There was weed in the car, too." 

"Hmm." Ronan said, a non-response. 

Kavinsky shot another one of the suns with one hand, and licked the syrup from the cherries off the other. It was somehow gross and obscene at the same time. Ronan found himself looking at Kavinsky's mouth, which was now unnaturally pink.

"You want the last one?" He held the gun out to Ronan, between them. Ronan could tell that it was sticky with sugar, and declined with the shake of his head. K shrugged, and shot the last of the suns with a nonchalance that sent a shiver down his spine.

The clearing was well and truly dark now.

Ronan said: "I should go back soon." 

It wasn't too late, but it had been over an hour since they came to the field, and they'd driven forty minutes out of town. He couldn't linger here forever with Kavinsky. 

Kavinsky sighed, and climbed up onto the hood of the car with him. "Bo-ring. When do you need to be back?" 

Ronan shrugged. He didn't really want to go back, now that he was here instead. "I don't know. I have church in the morning." 

"Ah," Kavinsky was smiling now. "I forgot about your good Christian upbringing." He scooched over towards Ronan and ate another cherry from the jar in Ronan's hands. 

"Stay a bit. We can get high. I'll drive you home." 

Ronan considered this. He ate another cherry. "Okay." 

They smoked the weed Kavinsky found in the backseat of one of the Mitsubishi copies. Halfway through the joint, when his eyelids started to feel heavy and his skin became sensitive, Ronan climbed on top of Kavinsky and kissed him. He'd spent the entire night pretending that this wasn't why he'd texted Kavinsky in the first place, but the truth came out eventually. 

Kavinsky laughed when Ronan pulled away. "Is this what you called me for?" 

He had one hand up Ronan's tank top and the other on the back of Ronan's neck. His head was resting uncomfortably against the car window. 

"I didn't call you." Ronan said, and tilted Kavinsky's head back with one hand so he could suck on a patch of tender skin above his jugular. He tasted bitter-sweet and salty, and cloyingly of the cherries they'd both eaten earlier. 

K laughed again and Ronan could feel it in his mouth. "You're such a shitty liar." 

It wasn't entirely a lie. Ronan had texted him. And maybe this was what Ronan had wanted, when he texted him but he didn't know how to say it. 

He kissed Kavinsky again to avoid talking, hard, until he heard the thump of K's skull against the window. He was lucky that K didn't complain, just got his tongue in Ronan's mouth and kissed him back. 

They stopped talking. K put his mouth on Ronan's neck, ran his hands over his scalp. His nails left raw, red marks everywhere. Ronan managed to slot one thigh between K's legs, uncomfortably in the cramped backseat. They rocked into each other, back and forth until Ronan had the nerve to unbutton K's jeans. 

Ronan had never done this before, not to another person, not even in dreams. 

Kavinsky's skin was softer than he thought it would be, and under Ronan's hand his cock was hard and hot. Ronan might not have been experienced, but he knew enough about K to know he didn't want anything slow or gentle. He kept his hand wrapped around him, deliberate and strong, giving quick, hard tugs. 

K's breathing came faster with each second, and he leaned into Ronan, rocking his hips into his hand. There was a sick sort of satisfaction in it, to see Kavinsky so undone because of him. His mouth and cheeks had flushed. Ronan thought, for an instant, that he could get used to this. It was Kavinsky who needed something from him. It was Kavinsky leaning into his touch, helpless, his mouth against Ronan's ear- a hundred hungry sounds. 

The windows of the car had fogged up from the weed and the heat of their breath. Ronan held on to Kavinsky until he came onto his hand, shivering and wrung-out. They stayed that way for a few long moments, sweat cooling. Ronan was sticky where K had pushed his shirt up and came on his stomach. K's shoulders still shook- twitchy and blissed out. He said: "God-fucking-damn." He was so wrecked his voice sounded raw. He had one hand on Ronan's stomach. "Goddamn you." 

Kavinsky's breathing was still ragged, but he kissed Ronan hungrily, messily. He was pushing Ronan back across the seat. He pulled away long enough to breathe again, and to tug on Ronan's shirt angrily. "Off." He said, and Ronan obliged, pulling the t-shirt over his head and tossing it into the front seat. 

His mouth was on Ronan instantly- The hollow of his throat, the junction of soft flesh where his neck met his shoulder, his chest. Kavinsky was not gentle. In some places he sucked and licked and bit so hard he got the impression that K wanted to eat him alive. He had one hand on Ronan's inner thigh, the other on his hips, pushing Ronan back so he was flush against the car door. He sat up and kicked open the other door.

"What are you doing?" Ronan was embarrassed to hear how uneven his voice was. 

Kavinsky licked his lips, and wiped the hair out of his eyes. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm about to suck you off. You're too fucking tall. I need more room." Ronan felt himself flush from the tips of his ears to the center of his chest. It was like he'd been dumped with hot water. Kavinsky eyed Ronan, who was still trying to process what he'd said. His eyes narrowed. "What? Never had a blowjob before?" 

Ronan hated how nervous he was. He could feel his pulse in his jeans. "Fuck you." 

K sighed dramatically, and placed a hand over his heart. "You know that's all I want, babe." 

With that, he leaned forward to kiss Ronan on the mouth. At the same time, he unbuttoned Ronan's jeans and shoved them down. It took a bit of cooperation on Ronan's part to get them off past his thighs with how cramped the car was, but there wasn't any point in playing at reluctance anymore. Ronan had gotten Kavinsky off first. 

K lay down, his ankles dangling awkwardly out the car door, and propped himself up on his elbows. He kissed the inside of Ronan's thigh, sucked his skin between his teeth until a small sound bubbled up in Ronan's throat. He tilted his head back until it leaned uncomfortably against the window. 

Resting one arm on Ronan's thigh, Kavinsky took Ronan's cock out of his boxers. Ronan closed his eyes and turned his face away, shivering. K began to suck him in earnest. His mouth was hot and wet as he went down on Ronan and came up again, mouthing at the tip of his cock. Ronan covered his face with one arm, and bit his own bicep to keep from embarrassing himself. 

Kavinsky kept going- sucking and licking and squeezing in a way that made Ronan's toes curl, made him throw his head back against the window even when it hurt. He thought he might die from it. The rhythm of K's touch built up a slow heat inside him, the kind that made his bones shake. It was too much- he felt liquid-hot from his spine to his toes. He gave up stifling himself and cursed under his breath. Something inside him unwound slowly, and then all at once as he came, and K pulled off to jerk him through the end of it. 

Ronan was lucky he wasn't wearing his shirt, because he came all over his stomach. 

He was entirely spent, still twitchy and sensitive as K reached into the front seat to retrieve his shirt and wipe up the mess. If Ronan hadn't been so blissed out and boneless from his orgasm, he might've snapped at Kavinsky, but he could only manage: "This is the second shirt you've ruined with jizz stains." 

"Please," Kavinsky scoffed. "I know you've got plenty more. These are the only things you wear." 

"I can't go back in that." Ronan said sitting up. His breath hadn't caught up with him yet. He pulled his pants on. He was still so sensitive that his jeans were almost uncomfortable, but he wasn't going to sit in the back of Kavinsky's car with his dick out. 

"We can rustle up something around here." Kavinsky said. He looked as grubby and spoiled as Ronan did, but he wore it differently. Ronan thought he was supposed to look like this - sweaty and flushed from sex and drugs. He looked as alive as he did behind the wheel of a car. 

"You're such a dick." Ronan told him, and checked his phone. The screen read 11:26. "It's almost midnight. I have to go." 

"Are you going to turn into a fucked-up pumpkin?" Kavinsky asked, and Ronan rolled his eyes. 

"No. Church, remember?" 

"Ah." K's expression cleared. It looked like he was trying to think of a joke, but it escaped him, and he waved a careless hand. "Let's go, then." 

They collected their things from the different cars they'd lounged in throughout the evening, and Kavinsky looked through the backseats of each Mitsubishi they passed until he found an ugly (but clean) shirt that he passed off to Ronan. It had a smiley face printed on the chest, and in san-serif lettering it told Ronan: _YOU'LL SOON BE COMPOST._

Ronan put it on. He didn't really have a better option. 

In the dark, they picked their way back to the Mitsubishi they'd come in. Kavinsky played bulgarian rap on the drive home and hummed along absent mindedly. Ronan was so tired from the weed and the sex that he dozed off in the passenger seat, until K parked a block away from Monmouth and woke him up. 

"Sleeping Beauty, hey," Kavinsky gently slapped Ronan's cheek until he jerked back and sat up, scowling. "We're here."

"Okay," Ronan said, rubbing his eyes. "Jesus." He looked at Kavinsky with a slanted gaze. "Thanks for the ride." 

"No problem." While Ronan had slept, K put his sunglasses back on. It was impossible to gauge his expression accurately as long as he wore them. Ronan moved to climb out of the car, but Kavinsky interrupted him. "Next time just tell me you want to fuck." 

Ronan wanted to say there wouldn't be a next time. He knew this wouldn't last, knew it couldn't possibly work in any capacity more than what they already had. Kavinsky couldn't be his boyfriend. Ronan didn't _want_ Kavinsky to be his boyfriend. But it wasn't entirely about the sex, either. For all the ways he was disgusting, dishonest, and immoral, there was something that kept Ronan coming back. 

Kavinsky was a dreamer, too. It was something none of his friends understood, and nothing any of them were able to accept the magnitude of comfortably. 

Ronan didn't want to be alone forever. 

He said: "I'll call you." And got out of the car.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to berniefienman & violetsartandsappho on tumblr for help with my latin translations. 
> 
> *Semper me petebas = You were always seeking me.  
> *Cur status hoc est? = Why are things like this / Why are things this way?  
> *Solus eris = You will be alone.


End file.
